Cologne Cathedral is one of the wonders of Christian architecture. It is truly spectacular.
The railway station is right beside it, and so sadly Cologne Cathedral witnessed shocking, racially-motivated, mass violence against young German women on New Year's Eve. The story is told here, (rather differently) hier und heir. (Avoid the Breitbart combox if you're sensitive.)
Wow! Read the linked English article in Breitbart. It really seems the authorities have been caught flat footed by their own expectations that the recent migrants will respect their existing liberal Euro culture.
ReplyDeleteAnd what an appalling police response - they should have been able to get 50 cops there in under 30 minutes for report of sexual assaults & robbery, surely. Which is enough to form a line to protect the women from groping hands as they arrive and leave Cologne station.
Southern Bloke.
North Africans have been settling in Germany for some time now, so there is no real evidence that this particular mob was made up of the most recent migrants. My German is terribly rusty, but I think there were not enough police.
ReplyDeleteIt boggles my mind that anyone would think that young men from Africa and the Middle East would give a rodent's posterior for the existing liberal Euro culture. I found Germany's casual soft porn advertising (which the Germans don't think is porn) pretty shocking, but German men and women have so much mutual respect (or are so numbed to the naked human form) that hitherto Germans have been able to sun themselves naked in parks without fearing they'll be gawked at. The idea of politely not looking when women are sunbathing topless in a public park must be truly mind-blowing to an 18 year old boy from Kansas, let alone Casablanca or Aleppo.
The funny thing about the German love of nudity and frank, illustrated medical talk to teenagers about the facts of life is that the Germans are (or consider themselves) relatively sexually chaste, faithful and continent.
DeleteFair point, it may not be the more recent migrants. Wouldn't be any better behaviour if it was ethnic Germans anyway.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought about German attitudes to exposure & nudity as contributing to the problem. Certainly having partially clad people around does not encourage chaste thoughts, but even if people wandered around naked they still should not be sexually assaulted.
That distinction between behaviour/dress of victim and response of attacker is the critical mindset in men that has to change. We men have to stop seeing the dress, or lack thereof, of a woman as permitting sexual aggression towards her by men.
SB.